Test 5 · ★ · Myth check: do goldfish have a three-second memory?

What would happen if a fish really forgot everything every three seconds?

Mova's choice: option 1 · The right answer: option 2 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: fish · What happens: happen, forget · To what, where: everything

This is test 5 · ★ of lesson 152 «Myth check: do goldfish have a three-second memory?» of the biology course of Mova's primary school. The page gives the question's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause, then the 4 options as the student saw them, each with its tree and pragmatics. Every text is parsed by Mova itself. How the student answered it, with the score of every option and why: the test at school.

The question

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	3 happen	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	aux
3	happen	happen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	if	if	SCONJ	_	8 forgot	mark
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 fish	det
6	fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 forgot	nsubj
7	really	really	ADV	_	8 forgot	advmod
8	forgot	forget	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happen	advcl
9	everything	everything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Tot	8 forgot	obj
10	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	12 seconds	det
11	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	12 seconds	nummod
12	seconds	second	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 forgot	obl:unmarked
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 happen	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	would							vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	forget a condition, not said to happen	past	a fish	everything			second		tree rules

One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

The options

Option 1 · ← Mova's choice

It would get cleverer

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 get	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 get	aux
3	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	cleverer	clever	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 get	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	get	would	It					clever property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

Option 2 · ✓ the right answer

It could not learn where food or danger is and would soon die in the wild

The tree, 16 words

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 learn	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 learn	aux
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	4 learn	advmod
4	learn	learn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	4 learn	ccomp
6	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 where	nsubj
7	or	or	CCONJ	_	8 danger	cc
8	danger	danger	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 food	conj
9	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 where	cop
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 die	cc
11	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	13 die	aux
12	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	13 die	advmod
13	die	die	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 learn	conj
14	in	in	ADP	_	16 wild	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 wild	det
16	wild	wild	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 die	obl

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	not learn	could	It		vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	is	present	food or danger	where property	tree rules
3	die	would		in the wild; soon property	vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.patient V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in wild=Attribute

Option 3

It would live much longer

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 live	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 live	aux
3	live	live	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	much	much	ADV	_	5 longer	advmod
5	longer	long	ADV	Degree=Cmp	3 live	advmod

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	live	would	It					long property	vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

Option 4

Nothing would change for it, because fish live on luck rather than memory

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 change	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 change	aux
3	change	change	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	for	for	ADP	_	5 it	case
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 change	obl
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 live	punct
7	because	because	SCONJ	_	9 live	mark
8	fish	fish	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 live	nsubj
9	live	live	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 change	parataxis
10	on	on	ADP	_	11 luck	case
11	luck	luck	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 live	obl
12	rather	rather	ADV	ExtPos=CCONJ	14 memory	cc
13	than	than	ADP	_	12 rather	fixed
14	memory	memory	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 live	conj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	change	would	Nothing					for it	vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	live	present	fish			luck			vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on luck=Location

Text: the tests of Mova's primary school, written for Mova (world/data/school/), as the course runner gave them to the student. Trees: Mova's own parse — the en model on the CPU, when the site is built — not checked by a teacher; they may be wrong. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), each text read on its own. Elamur Cosmic License.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/biology/152-goldfish-memory/t5/